David B. Harris

Director, International and Terrorist Intelligence Program, INSIGNIS Strategic Research Inc.

With three decades in the field of international security and intelligence affairs, David Harris is a Canadian lawyer involved in criminal and national security issues, and Director of the International and Terrorist Intelligence Program, INSIGNIS Strategic Research Inc. Maclean’s, Canada’s most prominent newsmagazine, calls Harris “one of Canada’s leading experts on terrorism” and acknowledges “his almost unique willingness to speak publicly and fearlessly about Islamic extremism.”

As a consultant, Harris has made security assessments of multi-billion-dollar infrastructure projects, including energy generation and distribution initiatives. As a lawyer, he has served as an intervener counsel at Canadian terrorism and intelligence commissions of inquiry, most recently the Air India Inquiry and the Iacobucci Internal Inquiry. He has also consulted with intelligence organizations in Canada and abroad, and served with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in 1988-1990.

David Harris is a regular commentator in English and French on terrorism and national security, and has been a witness at US Congressional subcommittee and Canadian parliamentary committee hearings, his analyses receiving international media attention. Quoted in the New York Times, The Washington Post, and international news services, Harris has appeared on television’s America’s Most Wanted, CBS’s 60 Minutes, NBC Dateline, The Today Show, The CBS News, CNN, and FOX’s O’Reilly Factor and The Big Story With John Gibson, as well as SUN TV, CBC, CTV and other networks. Harris is featured weekly on CFRA Radio Ottawa’s The Intelligence File, and his writing has appeared in various publications.

In addition to his law qualification, Harris holds a Master of Science in Foreign Service degree from Georgetown University, Washington, DC, and a Master’s in Public Administration from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.

David Harris has been honoured by the International Council of the Islamic Supremo Ordine Salomonico dei Principi di Shekal, Italy, for his role “in Canada and North America as a counterterrorism expert and security analyst committed to the defense of moderate Muslims and in the safeguard of their constitutional rights; [as well as] For his role in unmasking fanaticism and making reasoned moderation prevail.”

Nothing says bug-eyed clerical fanaticism more than inviting a hate-spewing Saudi cleric to address your religious revival meeting. But this is part of the under-reported history of the Reviving the Islamic Spirit (RIS) Convention, a conference that Justin Trudeau, a frontrunner in Canada's Liberal Party leadership race -- and son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau -- will address this weekend in Toronto.
It's also why moderate Muslims and non-Muslims are aghast at the prospect of Trudeau's presence legitimizing the conference and some of its notables.

Recently the Toronto District School Board suspended an Islamic school's operating permit after its Iranian-sponsored textbooks were found to promote anti-semitism and jihad. The Toronto incident, however, is not an isolated one: Another program, this one offered in an Ottawa public elementary school, relied on similarly controversial materials.

Canada charged into a military mission with no guarantee about which of our enemies might ultimately run Libya as a base targeting Canadians. Muslim Brotherhood? Al-Qaeda? Iran? Sudan? Some combination? And to reinforce the risks, we supported international funding of Libya's new jumble of leadership, a leadership that is proving sympathetic to Sharia impositions.

With Mr. Harper's decision to reintroduce controversial anti-terrorism measures, he has wrenched himself loose from the kind of self-imposed stymying that has characterized the Obama administration's ambiguous language -- and focus -- in Islamist counterterrorism.